


System Failure

by Donna_Immaculata



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Aftermath, Awkward Sex, F/M, First Time, Gratuitous Smut, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 15:36:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1108554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donna_Immaculata/pseuds/Donna_Immaculata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He needs to feel good for a change and she needs to get him out of her system.</p>
            </blockquote>





	System Failure

1.

It’s not that I wouldn’t, she’d said. I’d be worried you’d collapsed on me. The significance of these words did not register until the door closed behind her and Becca’s brain had the chance to process what had just passed between them.

Had he really just made a pass at her? It seemed ludicrous. He was not a man she’d ever thought of as having a libido, and yet… her own words had given her away. Somewhere, buried deep inside her subconscious, she had wondered what it’d be to have sex with him, because her answer had rolled so smoothly off her tongue.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to. It was only that she worried he might collapse.

“Oh, well done,” she muttered, as she walked down the stairs, and it was only when she’d reached reception that she realised she had never received an answer on the journalist question.

2.

The news has spread all over town: the killer has been found. More and more details trickle in slowly, each new one more horrific than the last, until the press conference in the afternoon disperses all doubts and knocks the breath out of the town’s collective lungs. It is the worst possible answer to a question that could never have had an easy solution.

Along with everybody else, Becca is in turns horrified, petrified and angry. News and gossip intermingle merrily as the evening goes by, and by the time night falls, no theory has been left unexplored. Becca’s head spins with the viciousness of the accusations thrown at the woman who has lost everything. She is not surprised that DI Hardy gets dragged into the fray as well; unlike Ellie, he has never been a popular or valuable member of the community.

Darkness has fallen by the time he returns to the Traders’ Arms. Becca spots the familiar silhouette highlighted against the lit hall as he stands in the doorway, his shoulders slumped. His face is a study in grey, the lines around his eyes and mouth standing out in stark contrast against the waxen skin. It isn’t that he looks pale. He looks dead.

“Hello,” she says nervously, handing him his key. Her fingers momentarily brush against his and she shudders at the touch; his are icy cold. “You’ve solved it, then.”

“Yep,” he says, looking not at her but at a spot three inches above her left shoulder. He remains there for a moment, rooted to the spot, and she wishes he would say something, because she desperately wants to let him know that she knows and cares, but then he turns away wordlessly and begins making his way up to his room. She sees him drag himself – and there really is no other word for it, he does drag his body with what looks like an almighty effort – up the stairs. She steps out from behind the reception counter and listens for the sound of a body collapsing upstairs, but it doesn’t come.

Ellie comes in, just as Becca is about to lock the door for the night. She slinks in in her orange jacket and walks upstairs, without so much as a glance at Becca. She looks stunned. She does not stay long and slinks back the way she came: as a ghost.

Back in her room, forcing herself to calm down, Becca knows it’s no good. She is on edge, and there is nothing she can do about anything. Images of Danny’s dead body intermingle with unbidden memories of Hardy’s lifeless form, of blood and of fear. The case has been solved, yet the aftermath is not less painful, all certainties slipping away, one by one. If even Ellie’s life could fall apart – who is safe? The only thing that Becca has a certain level of control about is making sure he is all right before she goes to sleep. She was scared, genuinely scared, when she found him unconscious in the bathroom. It was only after she learned that he’d be all right that she managed to see the humour in the situation of posing as his wife.

Becca picks up the master key and goes upstairs, afraid that she might have to use the key, yet hoping to hear him growl something abrasive and acerbic in that Scottish burr of his when he confronts her for breaching his privacy.

Five, ten breathless seconds pass after she knocked, and her own heart threatens to shirk its duty and to choke her by beating all the way up her throat. Then, just as she braces herself, the hand with the master key poised by the keyhole, the door flies open, and DI Hardy glowers at her. His dark eyes flicker from her face to her hand and back to her face, eyebrows raised in surprise.

“You really do like my company that much,” he says hoarsely.

“I wanted to know if you’re okay,” she says stupidly, staring up at him.

He opens the door wider, leaning against it, almost hanging from it for support. Becca steps inside; there really is nothing else she can do.

“I’m not okay, no. Not in the slightest.” She whirls around in surprise; that, she did not expect.

“Do you want me to call an ambulance?” she says. He doesn’t answer, merely treats her to that intense look of his. “I didn’t mean to invade your privacy,” Becca continues. “But you did look like the walking dead. And if the zombie invasion was happening in my hotel, I wanted to be the first one to know,” she says in a ridiculous attempt to lighten the mood. To her surprise, his mouth twitches, as if he found her silly remark funny. Perhaps – and that is more likely – he is too tired to process her words properly.

“No,” he says. He is oddly calm, she thinks. She has expected him to be… angrier. Belligerent. This docile behaviour is worrying. “Don’t call the ambulance. But you can look in on me in the morning to make sure I’m still alive. If I’m not, you have my permission to call the emergency services of your choice and tell each and every one of them you are my widow.”

“Good,” she smiles at him, attempting to disguise the morbid conversation as banter. “What time would you like me to do that? If you don’t show up for breakfast? Or sooner?”

“Of course,” he says, watching her face as he speaks, “you can always stay here to make sure I don’t die during the night.”

It is a taunt, it had to be. He is mocking her, and yet, and yet… Oh, and there it is. A tingle of arousal – ill-timed and ill-advised – trickles down her loins and pools between her legs. This is definitely ridiculous.

“All right,” she hears herself say.

The expression on his face is impossible to read, yet he does move closer and she suddenly realises how tall he is. “What?” he says, nervously.

Becca smiles, at last on familiar territory. She takes in his appearance with a quick glance, the bruised-looking, thin face with its sharp cheekbones, the too-large off-white shirt that hangs from his slight frame, its top buttons open, the hand that is still gripping the door at shoulder height. It is easy to take a half-step towards him so that, once he lowers his arm, it will necessarily brush against her. Unless he chooses to move away, which he doesn’t. He is staring at her, and she almost expects him to lash out in anger – her advances, if one can call them that, are certainly out of place. But he does not, and she feels bolder with every second that passes.

“I don’t want you to die during the night,” she reiterates. “A dead body would mean the kiss of death for this place. I am struggling to keep it afloat as it is.”

“I know,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.” She holds his gaze confidently now. “None of this is.”

One of them must have moved, because she can now feel the warmth of his body as she stands in his almost-embrace. All he has to do is lower his arm. If he does not within the next five seconds, she will know she was wrong, say goodnight, walk out of his room in a cloud of embarrassment and, judging by the ferocious nature of her sudden and inappropriate arousal, go to bed to masturbate fantasising about Detective Inspector bloody Hardy.

His hand brushes over her arm as he lets go of the door and Becca steps fully inside. The door falls shut, her heart leaps into her throat, and her hands alight on Hardy’s shirtfront when he pulls her closer, leaning in to kiss her.

“Oh!” she sighs in surprise. She likes how confident his mouth is as he deepens the kiss, with his lips rather than his tongue for the moment. He is gauging her reaction, she can tell, not quite sure if he misinterpreted the signs – again – and overstepped a mark. Becca slides her hands up his chest, over the sharp ridge of the collarbone and around his neck, tangling her fingers into his hair, telling him wordlessly _it’s okay, I want this, please don’t stop_. His tongue licks across her lips as he withdraws from the kiss and moves, open-mouthed, to her neck. Becca’s skin hums with pleasure. How did she go from fear and despair, from worrying about a man dying, to snogging that same man in his hotel room within the space of a few minutes? It is insane, but the very insanity, the surreal character of their encounter, eggs her on. This has nothing to do with real life.

“Wait!” she gasps suddenly. “Alec, wait!”

His head snaps up. “Not Alec,” he says, his eyes wild, almost black. “I don’t like Alec.”

“Okay,” she takes his face in her hands. “But, wait.”

“No?” He is still holding her, one hand flattened against the small of her back, the other cupping her breast. “You don’t want that?”

“I do, but.” The words stumble out of her mouth and she takes one deep breath, then another one, to steady them. “Do you have any condoms? Here, on you?”

“Oh.” He looks away from her face. “Erm, no, as a matter of fact. I didn’t expect…” his gaze travels down her body and back to her face, lingering on her breasts on its way up. “This. I didn’t expect it.”

“No.” Becca seizes his wrist and pulls his hand away from her breast. “I’ll fetch some. OK?”

“Yeah. OK.” His shirt has come unbuttoned, she doesn’t even remember when, and when he steps back to give her space, she glances at his chest, at the spot where his heart beats erratically beneath a thin layer of skin and an armour of ribs.

“You sure that that’s OK?”

“Yeah.” Following her gaze, he glances down at his own chest. “No. Probably not. But it’s OK. Please.”

It is the “please” that does it. Becca flies out of his room, along the corridor and to her own room, where she grabs a strip of condoms from the bedside table drawer. She has to be quick, before the rational part of her brain has time to kick in and tell her that she is about to make a huge mistake. As it stands, the irrational part of her brain is urging her on. She has to sleep with Alec Hardy tonight, to get it over and done with, to get it out of her system. Nothing else will be sufficient; getting each other off with their hands and mouth will feel too much like unfinished business, like there is more to come. She cannot risk that.

3.

It looks like he hasn’t moved from the spot where she left him when she ran out. He opens the door the moment she knocks, he’s still wearing his shirt and he didn’t even bother to turn off the ceiling light. Once she’s inside, he grabs her and shoves her against the door, pressing himself against her with the full length of his body. “Didn’t change your mind, then?” he growls against her lips.

“Did you expect me to?” Surely, he must feel how turned on she is.

Instead of an answer, he tugs the strip of condoms from her hand. “Four?” he raises his eyebrows. “You’re very optimistic.” His voice is dry, yet there is a note in it that tells her he finds her supposed expectations flattering. He chucks them on the bed and dives back in, into a kiss that is all lips and teeth and tongue. Underneath his abrupt passion, there is an odd tenderness: his kisses feel much softer than they have any right to be, especially since he apparently doesn’t hold with shaving. But the scruffy not-quite beard is long enough not to be scratchy.

There is a certain freedom in the fact that he knows her most shameful secrets – the failing business, the cocaine, the affair with a married man – she doesn’t have to pretend to be more than she is. She knows him, too, well enough to trust him, well enough to know that he’s not judging her, well enough to know that the reason he wants to fuck her against the door of his hotel room is not because he thinks she doesn’t deserve better.

His hand is now buried under her skirt and he slides it down her knickers and slips his fingers inside her. They both gasp, she into his hair, he against the skin of her neck. Becca rubs herself against his hand, pushes down onto his fingers, and they both tug and pull until her knickers end up discarded on the floor. “Can you come from this?” he punctuates the question by thrusting his fingers deeply into her. “Because, erm, when we sleep together, I don’t think it will… I will… I should take long.”

“Oh!” Of course not. There is a reason why all this is a bad idea, and it’s not just because of the emotional fallout that will follow this bout of madness. She wonders if he is scared of what the exertion of having sex might do to him; she certainly is, but not enough to give it up. “Yeah, I can, but perhaps… on the bed?”

As he takes a step back, Becca pulls her top off, and her bra, and in the next moment, she finds herself on her back on his bed. Her feet, still in heels, are on the floor, and he is kneeling between them, between her legs, pushing her skirt up and parting her thighs, and his breath hits her skin in short, hot puffs. He looks up at her just as she glances down, and she’s glad she’s so confident of her own beauty, of her long-legged, slim body, because she is spread out before him in the much too-bright light, whilst he is still fully clothed.

The rasp of his beard against the insides of her thighs, combined with the wet slide of his tongue parting her labia, make for a powerful sensation. Becca moans, burying her fingers in his hair. His fingers are back inside her: firm, steady thrusts, not very fast, as he’s trying to find the spots and the rhythm that will get her off. She grasps his wrist. “Curl your fingers a bit more,” she whispers, and he does, and pushes back in, guided by her hand, faster and harder than before, and she’s almost there. If only he…

“Deeper,” she whispers. He groans, and as his mouth is fastened to her clit, the sound reverberates through her whole body. Hot spots blossom everywhere: in her face, her loins, her thighs and her stomach, and they all flood in waves into her groin where they erupt forcefully, forcing a sob out of her. Hardy… Alec… Hardy goes very still, but he does not withdraw, not yet, waiting for her to stop clenching and shaking around him. Her thighs are still trembling when he comes up, and she holds his hand in place, pressing the flat of his palm against her pussy, relishing the feel of its solid warmth against her flesh. She’s surprised how much moisture there is; the insides of her thighs and even her belly are sticky with it. Moisture also clings to his face, his beard; Becca is sure he will be able to smell her wherever he goes for days.

He gets up, slowly, massaging his knee. Becca hauls herself fully onto the bed, wriggling out of her skirt in the process, and watches him shrug off his shirt and pull off his trousers. She can tell by where the wet patch is on his pants that his erection has flagged, but it is not completely gone. Even though he’s not fully hard, it still looks quite substantial, and she’s glad of it. If she must have an ill-advised one-night-stand, it’s nice to know that it’s with a man whose cock is worth it.

Hardy crawls onto the bed, kisses her briefly on the mouth – she can smell herself on him – and stretches out beside her. He doesn’t take her in his arms, but he doesn’t pull away from contact, either; their arms are pressed against each other, and she rests her thigh (still trembling) against his leg. It’s very clear in his body language that this is a liaison of convenience; they both desperately wanted something to feel good, and this, perversely, does.

Becca takes his hand, lifts it to her mouth and sucks his fingers in, first the one, then the other. Beside her, he stirs, and she watches his groin, watches him grow hard again as she licks and sucks his fingers. She really, really hopes his heart is up to it. She wouldn’t quite put it past him to attempt to commit suicide by sex and choosing her to be his executiontrix.

Once he’s fully hard, she climbs over his leg to kneel between his thighs. The bright light is even less flattering to him than it is to her. Becca cannot quite decide if she finds him good-looking at all. Right now, she is immensely attracted to him, even though he’s too thin and too pale. Too frail for a man of his height, with his sharp-edged hips and collarbone and his hollow stomach. But there is a certain beauty to the fragility, and she finds herself thinking that clean-shaven, with a proper haircut and put into clothes that fit him, he might turn out to be surprisingly attractive.

She leans over him and kisses a trail from his chest down to his navel, flattening her hand over his heart in what is supposed to look like a caressing gesture. The cunning manoeuvre does not escape him. “Are you checking if I’m still alive?” he asks, and there’s a definite tinge of amusement to his voice.

“Look at you, being the great detective,” she replies and drags her tongue across his lower belly, just above the waistband of his pants. She rubs his cock through the fabric before pulling down his pants, and he watches her with hungry eyes. As she leans in, however, she is stopped by a hand to her shoulder.

“You don’t have to do that,” he says. “I, erm, I haven’t had a shower since yesterday.”

“I guessed that much,” she says without thinking. “I mean,” she elaborates, because he looks as though she had slapped him. “I can tell you’re not… that you haven’t showered tonight. But it’s fine. Really, it is.” She crawls over him and kisses him fully on the mouth. “I like how you smell,” she whispers into his ear. And she does. This is the whole secret of this unholy attraction: it’s the primal, animal instinct of the female going after the male with the right set of pheromones. “What do you want?” she whispers inbetween deep, breathless kisses, for he has gathered her in his arms and doesn’t let go, and she isn’t quite sure what the next step is supposed to be.

“You to fuck me,” he answers quickly and to the purpose, and her arousal spikes again.

“All right.” Her hand is already groping for the condoms, and he rolls one over and she lowers herself onto his cock, and she’s so aroused that she can take him in all at once, no time to adjust required. She spreads her legs wide and rocks slowly against him, only sliding back and forth over his pelvis for now to give them both the chance to get used to the feel of each other. His hands are resting on her thighs and he is watching her, watching them as his gaze drops to the place where their bodies meet. One of his hands follows suit and he twists it in his attempt to rub her clit.

“No, it’s fine,” Becca tells him, pulling his hand away. “This is fine. More than fine, actually. Really good.”

“Yeah,” he sighs. It is the most involuntary, most human sound he has made all night. Up until now, he has seemed so purposeful and in control, as though not trusting himself to let go. He’s dissolving now, relaxing into the pillows, caressing her skin with long, languid strokes rather than trying to target the one right spot. One of his hands wanders all the way up her body and cups her face. Becca’s breath hitches at the tenderness of the gesture, and she turns her head and presses a kiss into his palm.

“You said we shouldn’t make it last too long,” she reminds him. She has leaned over him, pressing her breasts into his chest.

“Yeah. No, we probably shouldn’t,” he admits. “I wouldn’t like to inconvenience you by-“

“Having a heart attack while I sleep with you?” Becca lifts her hips off him and slams back down. “How do you want me to-?”

“Go on,” he mutters. “Just keep doing that.”

There’s no gradual build-up, no transition. They switch from casual caresses to fully-fledged fucking just like that. She has set the rhythm, and he meets her thrust by thrust. They barely once falter, and even if they do, they pick their rhythm up again, fast and hard and abandoned. The speed and friction are enough to push her over the edge any moment now, but he gets there sooner. His breath is jagged and shallow, and: “Fuck!” he grinds out through gritted teeth, “Jesus, fuck!”, and his entire body clenches as his orgasm is wrung out from him: his arm around her shoulder, his fingers around her upper arm, his stomach and thighs and every muscle that her body is in contact with, as if his body forced itself to climax despite itself.

“You okay?” he asks, a short time later, after his breath has evened out again.

“Yeah. You?”

“Fine, yeah.”

Becca shifts and rolls off him. “Oh, fuck!”

“What?”

She is dripping wet. “Did the condom break?” she asks, pressing her hand between her legs as a sense of dread begins to descend over her.

“Erm… no. It’s all yours.” He sounds amused, and she can’t blame him.

“Well,” Becca says, sitting up.

“Well.”

“I should go.” She picks up her skirt from the floor. “Will you be okay?”

“Do you still want to check on me in the morning?” His tone is mocking again, but she doesn’t care.

“If you don’t show up for breakfast.”

“I’ll make sure to be there, then.” He sighs and pulls the duvet up, watching her dress. “In future, if you want to sleep with a man with a dicky heart, make sure he’s old and rich.”

“You should take it more seriously,” she says, remembering the frantic ambulance ride to the hospital.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’m going to have a shower in a minute. I will wash off all traces of your DNA, SOCO will never find out you were here. Who knows, you might end up committing the perfect crime.”

“Are you going to burn the bed linen as well?”

He smiles, a brief, faint flicker that is gone in an instant, but it does reassure her. Right now, he does not look like a man at death’s door, and that is as much as she can hope for.

Becca leans in and kisses him, very lightly, on the corner of the mouth. “Good night,” she says.

“Yeah.” When she pulls away, she feels his fingers brush against her wrist. “You too.”

4.

The night was not good, but she never expected it to be. But he turned up for breakfast the next morning, looking well and alive, and that was that. He would be gone soon, and they would never talk about what happened, but she had got him out of her system. Almost. _Almost_.


End file.
